The answer: ONE incredibly talented voice actor!

His name is Rob Paulsen

No, I'm not talking about a quote from a popular 1999 movie. (Actually, the quote was "His name was Robert Paulsen" but without Googling it can you name the movie?)

I'm talking about one of the most gifted voice actors in the business: Rob Paulsen — a man who has a list of voice acting credits that make the phrase "a mile long" seem tiny. (You can check them out at Rob Paulsen on IMDb.)

A major influence

I grew up listening to the man perform in many cartoons. And yet from TV show to TV show I never suspected it was the same guy doing the voices. All I knew is that whichever character he happened to be performing, I gravitated toward it.

Some videos:

Here's just a tiny sampling of some of his work along with a 3-part series on voice acting!

Yakko Warner:
The funny "cat" with the brown pants.
(Rob also plays the bald psychiatrist with glasses, Dr. Scratch-n-Sniff!)

Not only can he act, but can also sing.
Seriously, singing in character ain't easy!

Pinky - the crazy British-accented mouse
(The Brain is played by the very talented Maurice LaMarche who also has an amazing voice acting resume!)

The Mask - The Animated Series
Here's Rob singing the main theme. (He also plays the main character, Stanley Ipkiss, as well.)

Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
(The turtle with the red mask.)

Snow Job from GI Joe

On Voice Acting...

(There are many, many more if you head on over to YouTube)

The Podcast

Rob also has a fantastic podcast that you should most definitely check out! You can find it here: Rob Paulsen Live

How about you?

Who are your favorite voice actors? If you don't know their names, then head on over to IMDb and do a search for the show's title. There you'll find a complete listing of who was in the show, what characters they played, and usually a link to the actor's IMDb page.

But before I begin to divulge, let me say up front that I am bound by a "somewhat relaxed" NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). Which means that there are specifics about the job that I'm not allowed to talk about, but I can talk about it in general terms.

So now, here are the most asked questions about the new job and their answers:

What is it?

I was hired by a video production house that specializes in a very unique video product for its customers. My voice will only be heard in these videos and not on TV or the radio or even on the Internet. The videos are very family orientated which makes me feel good when recording the scripts — and there are a lot of them!

Can you tell me about the scripts?

Unfortunately the NDA prohibits me from going into details about the scripts themselves, but what I can say is that the kinds of scripts are quite varied. This is one of the things I love about this job — the variety is just awesome!

One kind of script requires a Hollywood style movie trailer read, another needs a more sultry and romantic read, and yet another requires me to sound like a WWF announcer. There is a fourth kind of script that requires a TV documentary read and a fifth kind that needs an "Academy Awards announcer" style of read.

The amount of scripts I receive is anywhere from only one script per day up to as many as seven! Luckily, each script is short and only takes about 20-30 minutes to record, edit, and email back to the production house.

How did you get it?

This really was the most often asked question. Many of you wanted to know if I got it through my agent, or perhaps through one of the online Pay to Play sites like Voices.com or Voice123. Some even wanted to know if it was through cold calling or word of mouth.

The answer is: none of the above.

The production house found me through my website: David's Book of Voices - Voice Overs by David Radtke. It was simply a Google search. But that should be a signal that your personal voice over website needs to be competitive not only in content, but also in getting good search engine rankings.

Why were you chosen?

Ok, this actually wasn't asked by any of VAN's readers, but I'd like to briefly touch upon it because it's something that everyone thinking of getting into voice acting or who already is in voice acting needs to decide. And that is: what kind of demo do I need?

My commercial demo was designed to show off my range. I can be young, hip and quirky. I can be older and more mature. I can have variety in my voice or I can be flat. It was because my demo had so much range that I was eventually chosen over the others in the running for this job.

Please keep in mind, this kind of demo wasn't my decision — it was my coach's decision. My coach knows my abilities and what I sound like better than anyone else.

There is another kind of demo that focuses on your main "voice" or "sound". So, if you naturally sound like a guy from the Bronx, a cowboy, a sultry seductress, or a high-pitched bubbly cheerleader, then that kind of demo focuses only on that sound.

Personally, I am in no position to tell you what kind of demo you should have. That is between you and your coach on how to best market your abilities.

The contract

The contract was pretty typical. It included the payment terms, delivery of payment, length of contract, the Non-Disclosure Agreement, and a few other housekeeping tidbits such as if there is a dispute over payment, terms for renewing the contract and terms for leaving the contract. Luckily my friend is a lawyer, and after reading it through and translating the legalese into recognizable English he gave it the thumbs up.

Did I miss anything?

As always, my goal is to help those interested in becoming voice actors. So if I missed covering any questions you might have, please feel free to ask them in the comment section below.

There's no other way to describe Terry Daniel, Trish Basanyi and Dave Courvoisier - the best known and most authoritative voice actors on social media today. And VoiceOverXtra is presenting them in three major live webinars beginning Aug. 17, revealing their time-saving methods for making money through social media.

To learn more about these fantastic webinars follow this link:
The Voice Over Social Media Success Webinars

If you'd like to see the whole tweeted conversation and the videos, then head on over to How an Audiobook is Made.

It's called 'lowballing" — the practice of bidding extremely low on a project in the hopes of landing the gig — and it really does hurt!

Here's the latest occurrence I stumbled across...

On a voice over job website (which shall go unnamed) a client (who shall also go unnamed) posted a job for a 1-hour narration. The budget listed was between $350 and $500. About one week later that same client posted another 1-hour narration job. But this time: a budget of $50 to $100!

Think about it from the client's point of view...

If you (as a voice seeker) post a job with a budget of, let's say... $350, and then you get offers to do the job for as cheap as $50, wouldn't you then set the budget of your next job to only about $50? I don't know about you, but I certainly would!

Everybody wants to get a great deal. And if there are talented voice actors out there willing to sell themselves short and bid ultra-low, then why wouldn't voice seekers take advantage of it? If voice actors are always quoting a low price, then why wouldn't voice seekers start stating that their budgets are smaller than they actually are?

Now YOU think about it...

For MANY projects, the voice over is just as important as any of the visual elements. And some projects don't even have the visual elements! Your voice will help companies sell thousands and sometimes millions of dollars worth of their product or service. And they'll be laughing all the way to the bank at the great deal they got from the voice actor.

Now, recording on the road is its own special beast: you don't have your normal studio, you most likely don't have your normal equipment (microphones, etc.), and you may not even have your usual computer and software.

This happened to me recently. I had to "commandeer" an old closet in my parents house, fill it full of clothes and blankets, and get everyone in the house to be quite for about 10 minutes while I recorded. (Click on the image above to see my make-shift solution.)

My set up

I normally record on my iMac desktop at home, but the laptop I carry with me when I travel is old, which means that I can't run my favorite Adobe Audition CS5.5 on it. Instead I use Twisted Wave (it's Mac only, sorry), which in many ways can do just as good a job as Audition at a fraction of the price. If you're a beginner (or even a veteran) to voice acting, then this little gem of software magic is an excellent choice.

Now, that little blue light you see in the photo is my AT2020 USB condenser mic. It is an excellent little USB mic with a surprisingly good sound. (And the price is sweet as well!)

Wanna learn more?

As luck would have it, there just happens to be another webinar coming up by VoiceOverXtra. Recording expert Dan Lenard will talk all about the dos and don'ts of recording on the road. If you're interested, you can learn more here.

Working while on vacation?

Voice talent Paul Strikwerda wrote an excellent article (well, he always writes excellent articles) about should a voice actor work or not work during vacation. You can read it here.

In addition to Jonathan's list of what clients say to justify paying a lower fee, here are a few more I've heard (with my comments in parentheses.)

"Any voice actor who knows his craft can get this done in no time."
(True, a trained voice actor can get a quality recording out faster because we have the training and experience. But should we accept a lower payment just because we are good at our craft? NO! That training and experience demand a higher fee, not lower.)

"We can only pay a small fee for this project, but we have more work that we can send your way in the future."
(Really? More work? Great! Before you get too excited, keep in mind that this is a COMMON ploy in many freelancing fields. I hear it quite a bit in the website design biz I dabble in. Remember to charge for ONE job at a time. "Future" work is just that, in the future. It should have no influence on the present.)

"It's only a few lines."
(Yes, it might only be a little ten-second blurb, but it takes a voice actor longer than 10 seconds to record it, clean up the audio, and correspond with the client. In addition, we get paid for having and maintaining a home studio, having professional equipment, and some ROI (return on investment) for the money we put into our training and education — just like any other profession.)

Barbara has voiced more than 400 audiobooks! Her extraordinary range and abilities have earned her eight Audie Awards from the Audio Publishers Association — accumulating more Audies than any other single narrator. In the words of one critic, "Barbara is to audiobooks what Meryl Streep is to film." Now THAT is a compliment!

Recently Barbara held an amazing seminar called How To Become An Audiobook Narrator where she explains everything from how to do this special kind of voice acting work to breaking into the business. Voice artist Dan O'Day has gone ahead and made the audio of this seminar available on his website for instant download.

Click here to learn more:
How To Become An Audiobook Narrator